the amount of unneccessary exaggerated billing that goes on (especially for less bottom-line centric transactional clients) is the 800 lb gorilla that people pretend isn't there. But that's what you get when you measure people's worth in billable hours.

10:17 am May 1, 2007

lawlover wrote:

Common practice where I clerked during law school: Always round up.

10:21 am May 1, 2007

itax4u wrote:

Its not just the law firms. The large CPA firms (Big 4 and regionals) have been doing this 20 years. In another career I found one of the Big 4 billing $50,000 for travel when the only trave was local and less than $10,000. Looks like "the firm" all over again -- mail fraud..... Go get em

10:22 am May 1, 2007

Billable Law Student wrote:

I clerk at a firm that does insurance defense among other things. First, when I started at this firm, no one really explained to me how to bill or what is billable. It seems that billable hours is not an exact science and every office has its own scope and take on what is and is not billable. Second, I see padding as a problem. Double billing not so much because a client should pay for work an attorney does on their case regardless of whether or not its done at the same time an attorney is doing something for another client. Third, "making work" is a problem. One shouldn't have to "make work" to satisfy their superiors and feel secure in one's job. The attorney I clerk for often will have four people doing the same job because he wants something "now" as opposed to keeping track of and assigning tasks as necessary. This creates unnecessary billables. The whole billable system is very inefficient when used on a large scale.

10:30 am May 1, 2007

Anon Lawyer wrote:

If your practice group is busy, and you work for good people, "padding" isn't a problem. Clients are likely to get good results and attorneys are forced to work at a fast pace and think quickly on their feet -- which is the condition they work best at. But when things are slow, "padding" can get ugly ...

10:36 am May 1, 2007

Taxguy wrote:

Huge billables are how every new associate is graded. Never mind that teasing out a weird tax problem is not the same as reviewing a deposition. Also the fact that nearly all things billed are at the standard rate, so routine things subsidize the "emergencies".

10:37 am May 1, 2007

Concerned wrote:

There should be a governmental investigation into these improper practices that are widespread at the big defense firms. People criticize plaintiffs' attorneys but the real problems are the defense attorneys who have conflicts of interest with their clients. It is in the client's interest to pay as little as possible and the law firm's (and attorney's) interest is to pad their hours.

10:45 am May 1, 2007

Wake up scum merchants. You are fooling nobody. wrote:

Your profession is complete scum. This practice is RAMPANT among law firms throughout this country.
Scum.
Scum.
Scum.

10:52 am May 1, 2007

Too many laws wrote:

Ditto the scum comment there. Could we not simplify things if we got rid of half the antiquated or senseless laws that are on the books? The LETTER of the law has taken prescedent over the intent of the law. People who break the law knowing that there is some tiny uncovered condition or loophole that will let them get away with it are STILL BREAKING THE LAW. They simply take advantage by having their lawyer defend their illegal action based on that loophole. It is amoral.

11:06 am May 1, 2007

Andrew Cuomo wrote:

You are all right. I am going to shake you down next (as soon as I'm done with the student loan / financial aid industry).

11:08 am May 1, 2007

anon wrote:

10:53 you ignoramous. There is no letter of the law loophole.
The only way someone suspected of beaking the law gets off is if juries filled with people like you let them off.

11:14 am May 1, 2007

Sunny in Miami wrote:

Too many laws- have you ever waited to trade a stock until after Dec. 31 so you would not have to pay taxes on the trade until the following year (a "loophole")? Have you ever held a stock for longer than a year to get a lower tax rate (yet another "loophole" under your understanding)? If so, you, under your own logic, would be breaking the "law," since the spirit of tax law is to collect as many taxes as possible. Please take your idiocy elsewhere.

11:22 am May 1, 2007

Anono wrote:

I just regret having to bill for mistakes. This is not unnescessary billing. Rather, it is a result the inefficiences of law firms and the partner-associate-legal assistant structure.

11:25 am May 1, 2007

lawlover wrote:

Dear Wake Up Scum Merchants:

I suggest you read Henry VIII.

11:36 am May 1, 2007

Reply to Concerned/lawlover wrote:

There are plenty of firms, if client's have a problem, they can take their business elsewhere. Markets work, don't cry about it.

Also, there was no reason to post this comment: "Common practice where I clerked during law school: Always round up." If you're billing hourly, not rounding up = free labor.

11:39 am May 1, 2007

beentheredonethat wrote:

Double billing? Oh yes. Bill padding? Big time. Multiple flunkies working on the same matter. No question. How else can you get corpporate America to pay partners multi-million dollar salaries. How else can you pay first year associates, who can't find their way to the Courthouse, $160,000 a year.

11:44 am May 1, 2007

What About... wrote:

It depends on what they mean by "unnecessary". I do stuff I think is unnecessary all the time. For example, at $430 an hour I should never be making my own copies or preparing docs for a Fedex. But if the client doesn't get back to me until after COB, then I don't have a secretary to do those mundane tasks. Ridiculous, but part of providing client services.

11:55 am May 1, 2007

BigLaw Cumberland Grad wrote:

I had Bill Ross in law school and he is a brilliant mind. I took his Ethics course and learned alot from it. He spent about a week on billable hours. Some of his examples were interesting and thought provoking. I credit him to this day for teaching me how to deal with billables and clients. If anything, his course taught me that the practice of law is about keeping my eye on the ball and doing the right thing by the client. Treat them as you would family. Do everything you can for them and disclose, disclose, disclose. Communication negates the need to bill pad. Keep your client informed and be honest. We are a profession and we have a duty to ourselves, our clients, the bar, and the law.

12:16 pm May 1, 2007

anon. wrote:

the problem is high billable-hour requirements. no attorney can honestly and consistently bill more than 70% of his or her time to a client. and law firms won't change because of the collective-action problem.

when choosing legal counsel, clients should ask about a firm's billable requirements, as well as an estimate of total time worked (to see how close lawyers are to the realistic 70% number). choose a firm with a low billable number and good ratio, and you will be more likely to get high-quality, efficient, creative work product.

in addition, state courts and bar associations should step in to cerate ethical rules addressing this. incentives for firms that keep their billable requirements below 1500 might help.

12:23 pm May 1, 2007

Not surprising in the least wrote:

The billable hour is a license to steal. It has always worked that way, which is why we're seeing so many flat fee structures in the industry. This is a jaundiced view, but sheds some light on the problem - http://www.philalawyer.net/archives//print/the_grifters_gu.phtml I have never paid a full bill. Firms will always grant discounts as soon as you challenge the fees, a tacit admission if I've ever seen one.

12:34 pm May 1, 2007

Huh? wrote:

12:16,

You must be kidding. 70%? 1500? First off, even when I have a bad month and have to do tons of non-billable crap I have never had a efficiency rating of 70%. What the heck are you doing all day? In a 10 hour day you're wasting three hours? Where? It takes maybe half an hour to do your time. Maybe you'll get 2 or 3 non-billable calls. So that is perhaps an hour, hour and a half tops. Where is the rest of time going? (Please don't tell me you're counting your lunch and time shooting the breeze as "work" time.)

Second, a 1500 billable requirement is 29 hours a week. I often bill (no padding involved) more than that in three days. Not to mention that it would bankrupt the profession. Partner's profits are built on leveraging associate hours. Low associate hours = no partner profits = golfing in Bermuda.

12:36 pm May 1, 2007

It depends wrote:

I'm a tax/estate planning lawyer. It all depends on how you bill. If I prepare a document, I have an idea what it ought to cost the client-and that's what I bill. If it took me less time than my target bill, I write the bill up (pad it, if you will). If it takes too long, I cut the bill. That is not padding-it's simply clients paying what the marketplace will bear.

But if I pad bills in litigation, where there is no estimate of cost-and cost is wholly dependent on how the lawsuit progresses-that's "bad" padding.

A client should think of a bill as a request for payment-not a sum certain that is due. If the client truly think the bill's too high, then the client should pay what he/she thinks is reasonable. The law firm will rarely squeak. If the law firm thinks it's unfair, it has a choice-it can stop doing work for that client. That's what a free market is all about.

12:41 pm May 1, 2007

HaventPaddedYet wrote:

"With ever increasing compensation and billing pressures, attorneys are finding ways to generate more hours in a way that is not always ethical,"

You don't say! Did anyone ever believe that these NYC associates billing 2300+ were doing anywhere near that much legitimate work? Even if you're not trying to pad, anything done after about your 11th hour in the office is fuzzy-headed nonsense anyway.

Dear "It depends",
You shock me.
"A client should think of a bill as a request for payment-not a sum certain that is due."
You need to be locked up right now. Your ethics have "morphed" just like the rest of your field. "Good padding" vs. "bad padding"?
If you bill makes a statement of hours worked, applies a rate to those hours and thus computes a total, and that is submitted to the client as an invoice, AND you didn't actually work those hours for that client, that is called FRAUD you moron.

1:02 pm May 1, 2007

Fair Billing wrote:

If you're looking for a law firm with 1500 hrs requirement and 70% realization, you going to be hiring some pretty awful lawyers.

At the top shelf firms, associates routinely bill above 2400 hrs annually. There is no need to pad-- most would rather have less work.

1:03 pm May 1, 2007

Anon wrote:

I agree with What About. It depends on what you mean by unnecessary. Some partners I work for think a "closing list" is unnecessary. Others want a strategic plan for finishing the project. Some refuse to let you count "memos to the file" - basically memos I write up to keep track of the issues resolved in this negotiation so that we don't have to revisit it every time - as non-billable. For my money, I'd rather my attorney write the memo or manage the file for an hour today than renegotiate or relearn something for 10 hours next year.

1:04 pm May 1, 2007

Playa wrote:

All of ya'll are just a bunch of haterz! Don't hate the playa hate the game!

1:07 pm May 1, 2007

refugee wrote:

Dear "it depends" hater:

The problem isn't as cut and dried as you think. Say it depends researches and prepares a document for client x, takes him 10 hours. client y wants the samee thing, takes him 2 hours to take the same thing. Why should client y be allowed to freeride off client x? I see no problem with it depends charging them both 6 hours in that scenario.

1:18 pm May 1, 2007

Anonymous wrote:

I haven't seen this addressed as yet - the partners at my firm routinely write off associate time for client billing purposes (not for minimum billable/bonus calculation, which is a whole other story). It's not as if every hour an associate bills goes directly to the client. To that end, it's really the firm, if anybody, that gets screwed. I don't quite see it that way, but it's simply not the case that the client always bears the burden of alleged "padding."

As to double-billing for travel time, do clients always get billed 100% for travel time, or is it only when an attorney is doing work for that particular matter while traveling? Our travel time "counts" for hour-calculating purposes, but I must admit that I don't know whether we actually bill the client for that time.

1:23 pm May 1, 2007

All about the billing.... wrote:

1:18,

It depends on the client. Our firm always counts travel time as associate billable time, but whether or not a client pays for it generally depends on whether the client negotiated the fee arrangements. Some partners will routine write off junior associate time as "training", particularly since many clients do not like seeing junior people working on a project even though with out the assistance of a junior person the partner or midlevels wouldn't have been able to take the project.

1:32 pm May 1, 2007

anon wrote:

I've never double billed, padded my billable hours, or performed unnecessary work - it's dishonest and I'm not about to cheat a client, big or small. I still meet my BigLaw billable hours requirement and then some.

1:36 pm May 1, 2007

mark wrote:

refugee:

the fundamental difference between your example and the scenario presented by "it depends" is the total number of hours worked. In your scenario, the lawyer actually worked 12 hours; he just reapportioned those hours. The other example involved the situation where you get 4 hours worth of work done in 2 hours, and bill 4 hours.

1:50 pm May 1, 2007

Honest Abe wrote:

Lawyers don't pad their hours. What are you guys talking about? That would be unethical.

1:56 pm May 1, 2007

Such Nonsense wrote:

The whole "padding" issue is based on the theory that the total fee represents an exact hourly calculation. Then one starts talking about the write-offs. And what one should realize at that point is that an overall reasonable fee is being negotiated and the specifics of the write-offs -- travel time, training time, whatever -- are just the pencil-form for getting the fee down to a mutually acceptable level. Time matters of course, but exactitude of time shouldn't; it should be more of a macro calculation instead of the silly drill everyone is going through when they bill as if the precise number of hours really mattered.

1:58 pm May 1, 2007

Benefit of the Doubt wrote:

Could it be possible that the "It Depends" guy was talking about flat rate billing? For some of our smaller clients we provide a flat rate fee based on our projection of how long the project will take. Sometimes we take less time than we thought and sometimes we take more, but we only charge the estimate.

2:37 pm May 1, 2007

It depends wrote:

OK-here goes again. I generally do NOT send clients bills with hours and rates detailed for certain types of work. So the comment by the moron who said I commit fraud is wrong. I do not send invoices which have fraudulent hours or entries. That WOULD be fraud.

Here's an example for the guy who doesn't seem to understand me. I do a will for a client and his wife. I tell the client it will cost about $1,100.00, but could vary, depending on how detailed we get. That's the market rate. If the client works me to death, poring over every comma and semicolon, then I could have $5,000-6,000 in the file. But I can't bill the client that much so I cut the bill. On the other hand, if a client asks no questions at all, I might not have $1,100 in time in the file. But the client has gotten a document worth $1,100. So I bill him or her that much, even though my time is less than that. But I DO NOT pad my time to show that I spent more time on the matter than I do.

It's all about the type of legal work you do and alternative billing. Padding bills to show you spent more hours than you actually did is wrong-plain and simple. But selling a service with a prearranged fee, or an estimated range of a fee, is something else entirely.

Litigators painted themselves in a corner with the billable hour. 50 years ago, hourly billing was less common. Then litigators (mainly defense lawyers) started pushing hourly billing. If they want to use that standard, that's fine-but they have to live by those rules.

2:39 pm May 1, 2007

Where is L2L? wrote:

Where is Loyola 2L to tell us that the only way 2nd tier grads can make a living is by overbilling?

2:40 pm May 1, 2007

IHope wrote:

With so many making comments on here, I sure hope you're not billing me while you are writing your post. Or do you call this "research?" Scummy . . .

2:53 pm May 1, 2007

Bean Counter wrote:

"Padding" is a euphemism for stealing. This sample supports a claim that 54% of the bar steals from their client. Lawyers would be better off just telling the client that the process is expensive.

3:00 pm May 1, 2007

Haha wrote:

I Hope,

Nope, but I do call it professional development.

3:08 pm May 1, 2007

n wrote:

re Huh?

You work too much. It's not something to be proud of. Take a vacation, spend some time with your kids, turn off the computer.

The "BigLaw" work fetish is just sad. As far as I'm concerned, anybody who is interested in spending 12 hours a day, every day, chained to a desk should get whatever amount of money they need to fill up the hole in their soul.

3:15 pm May 1, 2007

Huh? wrote:

N,

You clearly are not a lawyer or a law student. I have a $150k in student loans to pay off. I work 60 hours a week so that someday, maybe, just maybe I can have a life again. Perhaps you shouldn't be so g-ddamn judgmental.

3:50 pm May 1, 2007

Doc in Texas wrote:

Wow. I really love the attorneys with whom I've worked and while I've seen some large bills, I've also seen large adjustments - that were not requested or expected. My guys (and gals) are great and the issue for me is value, not the details of the dollars/hour. This is a tough issue obviously. Very interesting stuff.

4:05 pm May 1, 2007

Its A Living wrote:

Sole Practitioner here, off the 700 lawyer Big City Firm treadmill where the 2 day "orientation" was really "how to bill 2500 a year without breaking a sweat". First month, 195 hours, 92% realization rate, and a stern lecture from 3 partners. That was 25 years and 3 jobs ago.

4:25 pm May 1, 2007

Bean Counter wrote:

An invoice should be approached from the standpoint of an aduit. What is your explantion to the auditor for the time charged? No question from the auditor, then no question from the client. The client is for most purposes frozen out of this area because only a Lawyer can estify as to reasonableness of the charge. Be familiar with what other lawyers in your area charge for the same or similar services. The client is really at mercy of the entire bar. Lawyers aren't cheap. Paying clients know that. However, padding (stealing) is never justified.

4:42 pm May 1, 2007

Economist wrote:

First off, only 5% (250/5000) of lawyers actually responded to the survey. There is clearly a huge non-response bias. What if the lawyers who responded were the only ones who padded the bill. Secondly, only 50% of that 250 responses admitted to padding the bill. So, from the 5000 lawyer sample, only 2.5% admitted to padding the billable hours. While this is an interesting study, the results should not be considered valid due to the significant biases.

4:54 pm May 1, 2007

Bean Counter wrote:

That's right, approximately 4,750 lawyers did not respond. And you are able to ascertain what from a non-response? 54% of the lawyers providing a response admitted to stealing.

5:23 pm May 1, 2007

Stealing for a Living wrote:

It is unfortunate that our society has so many lawyers who depend upon bad fortune of the working class to make a living. The effect of a lawyers work produces a no win situation between the plaintiff and the defendent. Both lose vast sums of money, when they would be better off negotiating with a mediator not a lawyer. If our laws in this country are so complex that it takes a law degree to understand them, then I think that the legal system needs revamped. A lawyer has a license to steal in that if he wins or loses a case, he wins financially. There is no product manufactured by lawyers other than a large bill that is usually padded. This country's corporations have decided to move outside the US and employ foreign workers, since lawsuits have become prevelant. When lawyers steal a company's hard earned money from a product or service provided, then you think twice about wanting to invest in this country. By the way, lawyers have created tax loopholes to allow themselves and the rich to get out of adequately supporting our country. I rarely use Lawyers and have found when I use them, I normally get the monetary shaft.

5:27 pm May 1, 2007

It Depends is getting in deeper and deeper wrote:

Dear "It Depends",
Sorry dude, but your defense is weak. You stated in your original post that you "write the bill up". Now what is that Sir? I think that means that there is an initial bill at level X. And then you deliberately modify (increase) the X number to a false number to get your "target".
You did not state that you fix-fee bill for will preparation. You stated that you have a bill, which you then "write up" -- i.e., increase.
Well, if you were fixed-fee billing for will preparation, you wouldn't need to "write up" anything, now would you? You would simply bill the agreed fixed fee, right?
So, I think we have enough evidence to seek your disbarrment right now Mr. "It Depends". You have been defrauding those clients who have given you the easiest wills to prepare -- and using them to subsidize work on your more demanding clients.
Your admissions against interests are enough. By the way, what state to you practice in as I would like to refer you to the bar disciplinary organization in your state. In one state, I have a relative who is an experienced criminal prosecutor, maybe you live there?

5:30 pm May 1, 2007

Former lawyer wrote:

Love all these guys talking about padding hours and wasted time. Yet they're all posting 9-5, prime time for them to be doing their legal work!
Oh and bean counter, perhaps you should read the study before critiquing it.

5:42 pm May 1, 2007

Atrocious wrote:

Padding is atrocious and I'd write more, but I have to get back to work.
Let's see, who should I bill for my time in reading this blog.

5:48 pm May 1, 2007

Bean Counter wrote:

Former Lawyer
What part the study do you claim I have misquoted. Did you read the article on the study?

Stealing for a living
What you are missing is the fact that many lawyers charge a flat fee. The hourly lawyers generally have clients that prefer such an arrangement. Don't cast your net too wide. Many Lawyers are honest people. It's not fair to say that Lawyers produce nothing. Generally, only two result can be reached at trial, and of them is really bad. The clients want the litigation and the litigation is expensive. Business is not lost because of litigation. Business is lost because Congress, specifically, has allowed those business to operate outside of the USA. Take those incentives away and the business remains here.

The right to a jury trial is most important part of our legal system, it is the jewel that the rest of the world wants. Any part that lawyers play to destroy it should be condemned. Lawyers should be the paragon of our culture, and many of them are. Don't shield bad lawyering.

5:53 pm May 1, 2007

Bean Counter wrote:

Former Lawyer
What part of the study do you claim I have misquoted. Did you read the article on the study?

Stealing for a living
What you are missing is the fact that many lawyers charge a flat fee. The hourly lawyers generally have clients that prefer such an arrangement. Don't cast your net too wide. Many Lawyers are honest people. It's not fair to say that Lawyers produce nothing. Generally, only two result can be reached at trial, and one of them is really bad. The clients want the litigation and the litigation is expensive. Business is not lost because of litigation. Business is lost because Congress, specifically, has allowed business to operate outside of the USA. Take those incentives away and the business remains here.

The right to a jury trial is the most important part of our legal system, it is the jewel that the rest of the world wants. Any part that lawyers play to destroy it should be condemned. Lawyers should be the paragon of our culture, and many of them are. Don't shield bad lawyering.

6:04 pm May 1, 2007

Busy Lawyer wrote:

I have not seen one instance of an attorney at either of the two major firms I have worked at billing for time not spent. Billing time for "unnecessary" projects is more of an issue because necessary is in the eye of the beholder.

In my career, I have always had plenty to do without making up unnecessary work.

And, I have actually seen many partners underbill their time to avoid scrutiny. Then, clients still want a discount.

8:44 pm May 1, 2007

Deflated wrote:

I just finished my first year of law school. Learning what this profession is all about has been one of the greatest disappointments in my life. No one has to be concerned about me padding or double billing, because I shall never practice.

9:30 pm May 1, 2007

Deflated is the only Hero in this blog tonight. wrote:

Deflated,
I applaud you. You have a conscience. Anyone with a conscience would and should leave this field.
And that's how we got stuck with the sub-human garbage who comprise 80%-90% of the lawyers in this country. Liars, cheats, time-sheet padders, billing fraud committers, client defrauders in the inducement and after the fact.
The small percentage who do none of these activities are, in my experience, the exception.
You are the only Hero in this blog tonight.
Meanwhile, the coward billing fraudster "It Depends" has run away and hidden from view.

9:37 pm May 1, 2007

cant study wrote:

why is corporate tax so complicated? i cant stand this crap!

9:47 pm May 1, 2007

Idiot Lawyers and Statistics wrote:

I love it when idiot lawyers try to act like skilled statisticians. Listen up you undereducated bozos who attempt to discount this survey:
What is non-response bias?
Well, often it's like this. You ask people have they ever committed murder, and you expect a lower rate of response from those who HAVE commmitted murder. Make sense? Duh?
"Have you ever stolen over $1,000 from anyone", again, a lower rate of response from those who HAVE stolen. Duh? (Or should we make it $100,000 since we're dealing with lawyers?)
Have you ever cheated on your wife? Again, a higher rate of response among the NON-cheaters. Make sense?
Have you ever padded your timesheet via "unnecessary tasks"?
Oh. But here we expect only (or primarily) those who HAVE committed this wrong against a client to respond? While the non-padders don't respond?
Duh!
You are Morons. MORONS.
The implication, if anything, of this survey, is that the rate of client billing abuse among the non-respondents is EVEN HIGHER.
And Mr. "Economist", I'm getting the sense that you probably flunked econometrics, multivariate statistics, logic, Calculus I, II and especially III, and you couldn't perform the integral of a common probability density function to safe your life.
How dare you call yourself "Economist"? Find another fake name. How about "Econodunce"?

10:14 pm May 1, 2007

A Miserable Profession wrote:

Forget about bill padding or double billing, what about the fact that lawyers have to live their lives by tracking what they do in 6 or 10 minute increments. How miserable is that?

10:17 pm May 1, 2007

cant study wrote:

beats working as a telemarketer

10:25 pm May 1, 2007

Jake wrote:

Lawyers overbill clients. THIS IS NOT NEWS.

11:54 pm May 1, 2007

Dewey Cheatem and How wrote:

There is NEVER a substitute for a good nights sleep. Do the right thing always and fear no man. If not, your day of reckoning awaits you. Lawyers are not God and should, without exception, treat all clients fairly, otherwise they should leave the profession.

12:02 am May 2, 2007

please.... wrote:

Deflated is the only hero at 9:30, so you think all people "with a conscience" should leave the profession? How is that a solution to anything? Such a well thought out proposal...you know so much about lawyers.

Clients who are concerned about bill padding should (a) complain about the bills or (b) negotiate a flat fee. Or, (c) find another firm. It's a client's market.

Deflated at 8:44, there are plenty of ways to be a lawyer other than working at BigLaw, and certainly the junk spewed here about BigLaw lawyers in general is quite the stereotype - not always accurate. Reading this blog is giving you a rather skewed view of the profession.

12:11 am May 2, 2007

John Edwards wrote:

Sounds like what they do at the salon when they charge me $400 for a haircut.

Ha! This is wonderful. The "robin hood" is an oldie but a goodie. Haven't heard it since 1st year associate days.

2:07 am May 2, 2007

IH8People wrote:

This is why I will never work at a "BigLaw" firm (and yes, for any doubters, I could very well do so). Too many of my friends from law school hate it, are under intense pressure to bill 2100, 2200, or 2300+ hours which, when you do the math, isn't physically possible for the average human with a personality and emotions. Of course padding occurs in those circumstances. But hey, GCs refuse to hire less than the "best".

2:27 am May 2, 2007

anon wrote:

ih8people, haha thats a funny screen name. currently Ih8corporatetax!!! who the f*ck invented this crap. i cant study this nonsense anymore so i keep reading these blogs....

6:57 am May 2, 2007

Misery is U wrote:

Miserable Profession makes a good point. Yours is a miserable profession, practiced by miserable people.
Perhaps this is why you inflict so much misery upon others.
Never before has so much misery been inflicted upon so many people by such a large population of parasitic blood-sucking humans, who out of thirst for even more blood, go so far as to lie to their very victims in the form of a fraudulent "invoice".

8:03 am May 2, 2007

Bravo to Deflated wrote:

Deflated is a hero indeed! He must have missed the first day of law school, when they rip your conscience out and split your tongue in two.

8:52 am May 2, 2007

Bill Reviewer wrote:

He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone; but, just don't do it while you're looking in the mirror. Superstition could equate to "Double Jeopardy".

10:10 am May 2, 2007

Funny wrote:

I'm surprised nobody's brought up the classic joke of the BigLaw layer who dies young, and when he meets St. Peter, complains, "I'm too young to die, I was only 40 years old," to which St. Pete replies, "Not according to your billable hours."

10:13 am May 2, 2007

It depends wrote:

There's really no point in trying to debate this guy who wants me disbarred. If his only experience with lawyers is dealing with litigators when he has sued or been sued, he won't understand any way.

What I know is this. I work in a smaller town, in a very small firm. I have 6-8 other lawyers here in town who do the same thing I do, so I have competition. If I was ripping off clients, I'd lose business. Yet I have more work than I can handle-and have for most of my 18 year career. And most of my clients are long term, repeat customers. And they're not stupid folks. Most of them are very wealthy people who need good estate planning. So the people who really matter-my clients-are happy with my billing.

11:48 am May 2, 2007

Billing fraud is billing fraud no matter how you spin it. wrote:

Dear "It Depends",
I understand perfectly well. Lawyers I have employed cut across the entire spectrum, including your speciality, patents, immigration, litigation, contracts, labor, IP licensing, and many more. Your arguments continue to be weak:
1. "If [you] were ripping off clients [you'd] lose business." This is absurd proof-logic which doesn't even deserve comment -- now if you got CAUGHT ripping off clients and publicly censured in the local paper, you might lose business.
2. You presume that your clients are happy with your billing. Well, do they know you have been up-charging their bills unlawfully? I imagine not.
I'll stop there.
Bottom line is this: you admitted taking an initial, accurate "bill" for some of your clients, and surreptiously marking it up to a new dollar figure to make more money for yourself, and then representing it to your client as the proper bill.
That is fraud. FRAUD.
You're in a small town. You do fraud every day. All the guys are doing it. So what.
It's still fraud.
So, if you would like to admit your name and city, I can help get you enought publicity to test your assertion that "[i]f [you] were ripping off clients [you] would lose business."
How about it. State you name and identify your smaller town.
See how your "very wealthy" clients react when they learn they have received fraudulent bills from you.

1:19 pm May 2, 2007

IH8People wrote:

As a lawyer in a mid-size firm who intentionally did not go to BigLaw (the latter route would be expected from a top-15 lawschool and a federal district court clerkship), I have to defend the profession generally against the vitriol being lobbied at it for a very big reason: In other countries, when people have disputes, they whip out the AK-47s. Here, they whip out the lawyers. Yes, yes, it sucks. But what do you want? Do you think we can have some capitalist utopia where everyone plays by the rules without oversight? I'm not suggesting that much more couldn't be done to reduce abuses and tame unethical lawyers. But the legal profession is an honorable profession that performs a necessary task. When Shakespeare said "let's kill all the lawyers," it wasn't a hit against lawyers. It was a recognition that lawyers stand in the way of tyranny. So, please, try to remember that there are thousands of lawyers out there who do the best they can and treat people with dignity and honesty.

1:28 pm May 2, 2007

IH8People wrote:

One more thing...it's not exactly true that a lawyer produces no value. There is value in having a system that facilitates contracting, efficient breaches, injury compensation, etc. It'd be a bit difficult to run an industrial economy without these things. Not to mention the whole criminal law side of things...

2:12 pm May 2, 2007

n wrote:

Misery is U: people hate lawyers because lawyers actually *do* the difficult things that need to get done in life. It makes it easier to feel good about yourself when somebody else takes care of that stuff and you can feel like they, not you, are the aggressive and selfish one. But I have yet to meet the person who, after getting falsely accused of a crime, hit by a drunk driver or defrauded by a debtor, wouldn't be whipping out their phone to call ... that's right: an attorney.

to Huh? - Actually, I'm a 3L about to graduate, just not going into the corporate game. But you're right, my post was pointlessly bitchy, and I obviously don't know anything about your life so I shouldn't be judging. Different strokes for different folks.

3:30 pm May 2, 2007

recoveringlawyer wrote:

With billable hour requirements and reduction in pay and lack of advancement for not "making hours," you had better believe it. As one businessman, himself a lawyer, once said, "Lawyers tend to run in packs. It's not their hourly rates, it's their 25 hour days."

5:23 pm May 2, 2007

escape wrote:

Reading this blog, I am struck by what an as*inine profession I have gotten myself into. It is truly a drag. I wholeheartedly encourage those just starting out or contemplating this career to run, not walk, to your nearest exit.

9:57 pm May 2, 2007

Charles H. Green wrote:

I am astonished by this.

I spent 20 years in big-firm management consulting, and have spent another 3 years consulting to Big 4 accounting firms (and that's not double counting the time).

I honestly cannot think of one single example in all those years of a consultant or accountant padding a bill. I'm sure there were some, but honestly--I can't recall one. So I'm damn sure it was far from common.

Underbilling? You bet. Cutting rates? You bet. In fact, accountants are generally afraid to charge their stated rates, they can't wait to discount. Pad? They'd just about never do it.

But this, this is incredible. 50%? And climbing?

In consulting we had very clear rules for double-billing. If it's between 9 and 5 and you're travelling because of the client's request, you bill it. Otherwise, you eat the travel time--unless you're doing work. But you never never billed two people for the same time.

But the padding stuff, that wbas just as simple as you could get: would you want this on the front page of the NYTimes? Would you be fine if your client saw your timesheets? If you couldn't pass the "sniff" test, you didn't do it. Simple. If you don't like calling it ethics, call it not abusing your clients.

Most of what this survey talks about would have been grounds for firing in a consulting firm, outright. You just don't tell your clients, for heavens's sake, that you did a certain amount of work when you didn't.

It's called lying. Fraud. Misrepresentation. It's pretty low.

I do get that when you're quoting fixed rates, then there's off-sheet time you don't book, etc. But then you don't need timesheets to track fixed costs; unless I'm misunderstanding something, the concept of "padding" applies to when you've said you'd bill on time, and you lie. (If I'm wrong and "padding" somehow applies to fixed price contracts, I don't get it; how can you "pad" an agreed upon fixed quote?)

11:20 am May 3, 2007

Jack Olson wrote:

IH8People, you misunderstand the context of Shakespeare's "kill all the lawyers" line. In the time in which his play is set, lawyers were searching for defects in the letters of manumission of peasants like Dick the Butcher to return them to serfdom. Far from recognizing that lawyers oppose tyranny, his bitter remark expresses his outrage at lawyers who aid in tyrannizing peasants.

Your claim that without lawyers we would all settle our differences with AK-47's is even more fatuous. The United States has vastly more lawyers per capita than Japan. Do the Japanese settle their differences with assault rifles?

At the start of the 1970's, 90% of American lawyers worked for just 10% of the people. During that decade, the number of lawyers doubled. By the end of it, 90% of the lawyers still worked for 10% of the people. We got a lot more lawsuits but it is not obvious that we got more justice.

12:40 pm May 3, 2007

Anonymous wrote:

The recent federal indictment of plaintiff class action law firm Milberg Weiss and two of its partners alleging that they made illegal payments over the decades to individuals for the purpose of serving as plaintiffs in security fraud lawsuits against public companies has garnered significant attention in the legal world. While the indictment calls into question the means by which Milberg Weiss and other plaintiff class action firms start a case, perhaps the federal authorities and state bar ethic committees also should investigate the billing practices within the plaintiff class action bar.

I have worked for eight years within the plaintiffs class action bar, including over three years at Milberg Weiss, and even have served as a named plaintiff for Milberg Weiss in a federal securities fraud class action against Citadel Security Software. Although I have quite a bit to say about my role in the Citadel Security Software litigation -- none of which I am proud, and which implicates Milberg Weiss and some of the other involved attorneys -- my focus within this post are two questions concerning the use of so-called temporary attorneys to generate the billable hours to support the fee applications which are submitted to the courts for approval upon the settlement of a class action. My principal concerns are the following: (1) the use by plaintiff class action law firms of temporary attorneys contracted through agencies to perform non-legal work but which is billed as legal work; and (2) the identification of these temporary attorneys in the fee applications as "associates" or "of counsel" to the law firm when in fact they are direct employees of the temporary agencies which have placed them on assignment there.

Frankly, I consider my eight years within the plaintiffs class action bar a rather dismal part of my legal career. It all began promising enough. I attended law school at George Washington University with the intent of becoming a gay rights attorney after some years as a political activist at Bates College. I became an editor of the Law Review, graduated second in my class, and had a one-year judicial clerkship with Chief Judge Judith W. Rogers on the District of Columbia Court of appeals followed by a one-year judicial clerkship with Judge George H. Revercomb on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. One could safely say that my eight years as a temporary lawyer with the plaintiffs class action bar was the bottom of the barrel in my legal career.

A. The Use Of Temporary Lawyers On Document Reviews At Plaintiff Class Action Firms To Perform Non-Legal Work

Many plaintiff class action firms, including Milberg Weiss, use temporary attorneys contracted through an agency to review the voluminous documents that are produced in discovery by defendants. In some cases several dozen temporary lawyers can be contracted through an agency over several months or even years to review millions of documents; obviously, the billable hours that are generated by such a document review to support the fee application and lodestar are substantial. Many class action law firms such as Milberg Weiss pay the agency an hourly rate for the temporary lawyers to review the documents, and then bill out these temporary lawyers in the fee application that must be approved by the court at a much greater rate than which it paid the agency.

Of course, at first blush there appears nothing untoward about the arrangement between the law firm and the temporary agency; after all, the documents need to be reviewed by lawyers, and obviously a law firm is going to bill out for this work in the fee application at a rate much greater than that which it pays for the service. However, the problem is that much of the document review in the plaintiffs class action bar being billed as attorney services in fact is paralegal or data entry work that should be billed as such in the fee application to the court.

In most document reviews on which I have worked in the plaintiff class action bar -- such as the Tyco Securities Litigation project at Milberg Weiss in which I most recently was involved -- temporary lawyers spend an overwhelming portion of their time engaged in so-called "objective coding" of the documents which entails inputting bibliographical data from the document -- such as date, title, author, recipients -- onto a coding sheet or into a database rather than engaging in substantive analysis or "subjective coding" of the document. The "objective coding" should be done by paralegals or data processors, and only the "subjective coding" should be done by the lawyers. Indeed, defense firms typically outsource the "objective coding" portion of the document review for $1.25 a document, and use temporary lawyers only for the "subjection coding" component.

However, on virtually every document review -- a substantial number over eight years -- on which I have been engaged in the plaintiff class action bar the firms collapsed together both the objective and subjective coding compoenents of the document review. Accordingly, an overwhelming amount of attorney time was devoted to performing non-attorney work and, in my opinion, the courts are misled into approving attorneys fees for work that could have been done much cheaper by paralegals or data entry processors.

B. The Identification of Temporary Lawyers as "Associates" or "Of Counsel"

Some plaintiff class action law firms identify temporary attorneys in the fee applications as "associates" or "of counsel" to the law firm when in fact they are direct employees of the temporary agencies which have placed them on assignment there. In my opinion this is wrong.

For example, in a fee application dated July 13, 2004, by the law firm of Pomerantz Haudek Block Grossman & Gross in the In re Managed Care Litigation (MDL No. 1334) before Judge Moreno in United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the plaintiff class action firm provides a schedule (Exhibit 4 on page 45) of names, status, rate, hours and lodestar for each individual who worked on the case. Several partners, associates and of counsel attorneys are listed but all of the identified of counsel except for one were in fact temporary lawyers contracted through and paid by an outside agency. The ethical opinions are very clear that the terms associate and of counsel are to be used by law firms only in narrowly defined circumstances none of which specifically include temporary lawyers who are employees of outside agencies and that these identifying terms should not be used in circumstances that are likely to mislead.

I respectfully submit that using the term "of counsel" in a fee application before a court to identify the status of temporary lawyers whose actual employer is an outside agency and who are used only on a temporary basis for intended limited duration and/or for specific or particular cases is inappropriate. On a gut level the use of the term of counsel to designate temporary lawyers seems like an oxymoron to me. According to ABA Formal Opinion 90-357 the term of counsel is to describe a close, regular, personal relationship, and yet temporary lawyers are by definition . . . well, temporary. How many temporary lawyers from the agencies run around identifying themselves as of counsel to the particular firms at which they currently are on assignment? Don't they usually just state they are temping at a particular place? Indeed, everything that I have researched concludes that "temporary lawyers" are not "of counsel." See, e.g., The Economics and Ethics of Hiring a Temporary Lawyer by Peter J. Gardner (A temporary lawyer is not 'of counsel'"); Wisconsin Lawyer ('Temporary lawyer' does not include a lawyer who has an 'of counsel' relationship with a law firm or who is retained in a matter as independent associated counsel); National Association for Legal Career Professionals (separately defining "contract attorney/temporary attorney" as substantively distinct from "of counsel"); Washington State Bar Association (expressly distinguishing between "contract lawyer" and "of counsel"); Contract Lawyers in Kentucky (relying upon ABA Formal Opinion 88-356 in specifically distinguishing "contract lawyers" and "temporary lawyers" from the meaning "of counsel"); The Of Counsel Agreement: A Guide for the Law Firm and Practitioner ("the use of the title 'Of Counsel' is permissible . . . as long as the 'Of Counsel's' relationship with another lawyer or firm is close, regular and personal and the use of the title is not otherwise false or misleading," and among the arrangements specifically excluded from the use of this designation are where the attorney is involved in only "a single case" for the law firm or constitutes an "outside consultant").

Your basic logical fallacy is that you haven't defined what a fair (hourly or otherwise) rate for a specific legal service is to begin with. Who decides what a "fair" rate is, and how? In a free market, the answer is the lawyers and their clients according to supply and demand. With perhaps a few exceptions, the amount of lawyers' fees are not capped by law or regulation and the parties are free to set a rate. Factors such as the lawyer's skill and experience, the presence of competitors in the market and the needs of the specific client will inform their considerations. Charging one client a different amount than another client for essentially the same work is not itself fraudulent - logically, it's no different from a furniture store charging price X this week for a sofa, and price Y next week, or airlines constantly changing their fares to fly between the same points A and B. And there is nothing shameful or dishonest about this free market reality. What is fraudulent, unethical and shameful is the presence of any MISREPRESENTATION of the amount of time spent doing the work, but only if the client is being billed according to that time. It Depends is correct and ethical in his practice of charging a client an amount he's willing to pay, irrespective of amounts charged to previous clients, because, at that place and time, supply and demand has set that price.

5:58 pm May 3, 2007

Get Real wrote:

What do the clients expect? Keep in mind that large law firm "clients" are generally lawyers themselves. Many have been in lawfirms. They know that: 1) there simply is not enough legitimate legal work for all of the lawyers who bill their time at $300-plus an hour and make $150k-plus a year to bill 2500-plus hours a year doing; and 2) despite the fact that they make $150,000 to $300,000 and more a year, clients don't want associates doing any real legal work for them. So, of course they're paying $300-plus an hour for work that could be done by paralegals (or security guards in many cases). Duh!

8:33 pm May 3, 2007

Charles H. Green wrote:

Actus Reus, if this is a free market, then you're living on Saturn.
Free markets--check the laws of the US government--are supposed to be fundamentally free of fraudulent representation, etc.

We have the SEC to enforce free markets. We have anti-monopoly legislation to prevent monopolistic behavior.

If this where any other industry than the law, you'd see criminal indictments and regulation. Unfortunately, all the prosecutors and legislators are lawyers.

What you seem to think is an exculpatory statement--"What is fraudulent, unethical and shameful is the presence of any MISREPRESENTATION of the amount of time spent doing the work, but only if the client is being billed according to that time"-- is precisely the point of the survey.

Half the industry apparently thinks it's all right to say the client is being billed according to time that isn't spent.

In other industries, that's called fraudulent misrepresentation. In common parlance, it sounds like lying and cheating to me.

What am I missing?

2:25 am May 4, 2007

BGG ESQ wrote:

If it weren't for tons of losers claiming soft-tissue injuries that everyone knows are BS, I wouldn't be able to bill 50 hours a month, let alone the 175 or so I usually do.

10:15 am May 4, 2007

Actus Reus wrote:

Mr. Green - that wasn't intended as an exculpatory statement, but rather a definition of the problem. Yes, it's fraudulent, unethical, illegal and shameful for lawyers to bill according to time that isn't spent. We all agree on this (even the lawyer who actively do it - they know they shouldn't be). What you and all the other critics are missing is that it's perfectly ok for a lawyer to not bill according to time at all, but rather according to a flat rate, contingency fee, salary, bonus, retainer or any other non-hourly method. And to set that rate according to supply and demand. What's more, even if a lawyer is billing according to time spent (and let's assume for a minute that the time is honest), supply and demand should ultimately determine the hourly rate. And if that is so, clients are free to shop around for a rate they're willing to pay. They may be perfectly willing to pay lawyer X $200 per hour, even if lawyer Y down the street is charging $150 for exactly the same work. That's a free market. Of course I'm not trying to defend dishonest timekeeping, nobody here is.

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